DESCRIPTION (adapted from the application): This core is new to the CNRU, having been in existence only since Ray Burk assumed the Directorship of the Center. He extended an invitation to David Ong to develop a core facility that would provide investigators with service and expertise in protein sequencing/amino acid analysis and service and expertise in the preparation and use of immunological reagents. To develop this service core than, two goals had to be accomplished. The first goal could be met immediately by taking advantage of the existing Peptide Sequencing & Amino Acid Analysis Shared Resources that was already in place at Vanderbilt and providing service to other Centers and individual investigators. The Shared Resource is under the direct supervision of Masaaki Tamura, Ph.D. The second goal required the establishment of new services and has evolved significantly since its inception in 1995. This arm is under the direct supervision of David Ong, who also is overall director of this service core. It serves members of the CNRU exclusively. The overall mission of this core is to provide the highest quality protein sequencing service so that investigators can identify or characterize proteins of interest. This (or other) information or material may than be used I the immunology branch to generate immunological tools for research. The immunology branch seeks to work with investigators from the first generation of antisera to productive use of it in various immunological techniques for research.